Who start the blue jeans? Or where do the Hong Kong street food, fish balls or eggettes come from? Many of our daily traditions cannot be traced to a single point of origin as many of them evolved organically over a long period of time. But when something turns famous or popular, stories about their origins start spreading and are often enriched with individual favours and interpretations. People, organizations or local authorities also like to claim their contribution to it and may even want to “own” them. Mahjong falls into a similar situation with many folklore claims for its origin.
It was widely accepted that mahjong evolved from a paper game in the Ming Dynasty, Matiao which still exists in varied forms and is being played in some parts of China today. Many of the core features of mahjong can be found in this game, such as it was played by four persons and it got three suits similar to the dots, strings and characters in mahjong.
But for the remaining features of mahjong, such as it is a game played with tiles, its honour tiles with the four winds and the three dragons of 中發白 or why it is named as 麻雀 which in Chinese literally means sparrows, there were different stories and schools of thought. We will run through them briefly in chronological order and share our views on their credibility. If you are interested to learn more about individual streams, you may check out further the list of resources we have given down below in the description.
The first claim relates mahjong with Zheng He's voyages to the west 鄭和下西洋in early Ming Dynasty around 1405 to 1433. In response to sailors’ homesickness and boredom on vessels, Admiral Zheng He developed mahjong as an onboard entertainment for the sailors and being in tiles prevent them from being blown away. The stories further extend to say relate the different suits of tile to the freight ranking, the number of water barrels and money rewards and the natural phenomena of wind from four directions and seasons and flowers. To most people, this sounds more like a made-up story than the truth as its timing seems too early and the reference to the numbered tiles seems quite far-fetched.
The second claim relates mahjong to the Ming Dynasty pop novel, Water Margin水滸傳around 1542. In the novel, there were 108 heroes which is equal to the total quantity of the numbered suits and these heroes did appear on some early mahjong sets. However, this gives little account to the remaining features of mahjong. Instead, the novel may have impacted the card designs which left their marks on the subsequent mahjong developed from it.
The third one is from a legend of a guard named萬秉迢 protecting rice grains in a royal granary in Taicang County, Jiangsu Province from being eaten by sparrows. In this legend, the guard named the three numbered suits after each of the characters in his own name and these numbered tiles were actually engraved chips to record the strings of birds caught, the gun bullets fired as dots and the bonus reward as the unit character. The four winds denote the wind direction affecting the shooting while the 中, 發, 白 means on-target, reward and off-target. To me, these sound far too shallow and colourful to be true. Furthermore, the reference cannot account for the wide variety of honour tiles.
The fourth claim relates mahjong to the Tai Ping Rebellion happened around 1851-1864. In this legend, mahjong was invented by the eunuchs and concubines in the Emperor's palace to relieve their boredom in the court. In addition to the four directions named after the top four subordinates, there were the heaven, earth, man, and harmony tiles named after the king, which could be found in the earliest set of mahjong and in Vietnam mahjong. For this school of thought, the names of the kings coincided with generic names of the four directions and four key elements in nature could not be strong evidence. Furthermore, there are actually more kings than these eight. It is quite unconvincing that in a time of civic war with great turmoil people could have the mood or time for inventing the mahjong game.
The last one says mahjong was developed in the early Qing Dynasty by a Ningbo English-fluent rank three official Chen Yumen (1817-1878) and for this reason, Ningbo local authorities claim that Ningbo was the birthplace of mahjong.
This was most believed as there were written records of the existence of the official Mr. Chen Yumen in Ningbo and he taught the British Consul General F.E.B. Harvey serving in Ningbo during the 1860s to play the mahjong game as recorded in Harvey’s diary.
But this school of thought was also doubted. First, there is no record of what changes precisely Chen Yumen has made to the precursor games. Second, the earliest surviving mahjong acquired in Fuzhou, Shanghai, and Ningbo around the period differ considerably. It seems mahjong may not be from a single source, or it could have developed into so many variations in such a short time.
Furthermore, being in the elite class, Mr Chen could have used materials like bones and ivory which were already used in the Chinese domino game which is named after its material of bone 骨牌or ivory牙牌 while mahjong was first made in bamboo and named the bamboo game. It seems mahjong has a much more humble origin.
In conclusion, the first fourth stories sound more like invented ones than true while the last Mr Chen in Ningbo sounds more like a promotor of the game than an inventor. The origin of mahjong remains obscured and I tend to believe it is a collective wisdom of the Chinese people than invented by a single individual.
It was widely accepted that mahjong evolved from a paper game in the Ming Dynasty, Matiao which still exists in varied forms and is being played in some parts of China today. Many of the core features of mahjong can be found in this game, such as it was played by four persons and it got three suits similar to the dots, strings and characters in mahjong.
But for the remaining features of mahjong, such as it is a game played with tiles, its honour tiles with the four winds and the three dragons of 中發白 or why it is named as 麻雀 which in Chinese literally means sparrows, there were different stories and schools of thought. We will run through them briefly in chronological order and share our views on their credibility. If you are interested to learn more about individual streams, you may check out further the list of resources we have given down below in the description.
The first claim relates mahjong with Zheng He's voyages to the west 鄭和下西洋in early Ming Dynasty around 1405 to 1433. In response to sailors’ homesickness and boredom on vessels, Admiral Zheng He developed mahjong as an onboard entertainment for the sailors and being in tiles prevent them from being blown away. The stories further extend to say relate the different suits of tile to the freight ranking, the number of water barrels and money rewards and the natural phenomena of wind from four directions and seasons and flowers. To most people, this sounds more like a made-up story than the truth as its timing seems too early and the reference to the numbered tiles seems quite far-fetched.
The second claim relates mahjong to the Ming Dynasty pop novel, Water Margin水滸傳around 1542. In the novel, there were 108 heroes which is equal to the total quantity of the numbered suits and these heroes did appear on some early mahjong sets. However, this gives little account to the remaining features of mahjong. Instead, the novel may have impacted the card designs which left their marks on the subsequent mahjong developed from it.
The third one is from a legend of a guard named萬秉迢 protecting rice grains in a royal granary in Taicang County, Jiangsu Province from being eaten by sparrows. In this legend, the guard named the three numbered suits after each of the characters in his own name and these numbered tiles were actually engraved chips to record the strings of birds caught, the gun bullets fired as dots and the bonus reward as the unit character. The four winds denote the wind direction affecting the shooting while the 中, 發, 白 means on-target, reward and off-target. To me, these sound far too shallow and colourful to be true. Furthermore, the reference cannot account for the wide variety of honour tiles.
The fourth claim relates mahjong to the Tai Ping Rebellion happened around 1851-1864. In this legend, mahjong was invented by the eunuchs and concubines in the Emperor's palace to relieve their boredom in the court. In addition to the four directions named after the top four subordinates, there were the heaven, earth, man, and harmony tiles named after the king, which could be found in the earliest set of mahjong and in Vietnam mahjong. For this school of thought, the names of the kings coincided with generic names of the four directions and four key elements in nature could not be strong evidence. Furthermore, there are actually more kings than these eight. It is quite unconvincing that in a time of civic war with great turmoil people could have the mood or time for inventing the mahjong game.
The last one says mahjong was developed in the early Qing Dynasty by a Ningbo English-fluent rank three official Chen Yumen (1817-1878) and for this reason, Ningbo local authorities claim that Ningbo was the birthplace of mahjong.
This was most believed as there were written records of the existence of the official Mr. Chen Yumen in Ningbo and he taught the British Consul General F.E.B. Harvey serving in Ningbo during the 1860s to play the mahjong game as recorded in Harvey’s diary.
But this school of thought was also doubted. First, there is no record of what changes precisely Chen Yumen has made to the precursor games. Second, the earliest surviving mahjong acquired in Fuzhou, Shanghai, and Ningbo around the period differ considerably. It seems mahjong may not be from a single source, or it could have developed into so many variations in such a short time.
Furthermore, being in the elite class, Mr Chen could have used materials like bones and ivory which were already used in the Chinese domino game which is named after its material of bone 骨牌or ivory牙牌 while mahjong was first made in bamboo and named the bamboo game. It seems mahjong has a much more humble origin.
In conclusion, the first fourth stories sound more like invented ones than true while the last Mr Chen in Ningbo sounds more like a promotor of the game than an inventor. The origin of mahjong remains obscured and I tend to believe it is a collective wisdom of the Chinese people than invented by a single individual.